When "Archive all" in the Inbox is the only solution

[Bastien_Siebman]

I suggested something I usually never do in Asana: use “Archive all” button in the Inbox.

My advice is always the same: you need to stay on top of your Inbox. Even if it means taking an hour per day. Because your team needs you: they need your answers, your insight, your opinion. If you are overwhelmed, that’s probably because you are part of too many topics.

But sometimes, the overwhelmingness of the situation gets in the way of doing a proper analysis. That’s what happened with my colleague. He was only reading and reacting to the latest messages in the Inbox. He was so overwhelmed, he was only dealing with the “urgent”. The “important” and below was ignored.

So his Inbox had become like a Facebook thread: endless.

In order to get back on track, I suggested he archived it all. And then started to very carefully analyse the different notifications he received. The goal: leave discussions if needed, disable “new task added” on specific project, re-think processes… All in favour of him not being overwhelmed anymore.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you already archived everything so you can start again on a solid footing?

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Bastien, Asana Expert
iDO (Asana Partner: Services & Licenses)

[Phil_Seeman]

Relating to email this is known as declaring “email bankruptcy”, so I guess this practice should be called declaring Asana Inbox bankruptcy.

[lpb]

I routinely recommend to clients to “Archive all” in certain specific situations.

The most common one is when they’re not really using the Inbox at all (it’s not uncommon!). There’s really no harm in Archive all immediately (during training) and we might do it together. But then, as you say, monitor the Inbox from then on following best practices, including clicking “Leave” on comment threads you shouldn’t remain a collaborator on. And also cleaning up all your “Tasks added” notification settings for all projects you’re a member of.

Thanks,

Larry